Inkjet printers that print by intermittently ejecting ink are known as printing apparatuses for printing images onto various types of media to be printed, such as paper, cloth, and film. With such inkjet printers, printing is carried out by repeating in alternation a process of positioning a medium to be printed by carrying it in a direction toward a print head, and a process of ejecting ink while moving the print head in a main-scanning direction that intersects the carrying direction in which the medium to be printed is carried.
When carrying the medium to be printed in the direction toward the print head, if the medium is carried with either its upper right end or its upper left end leading the other, that is, if the medium to be printed is skewed in the carrying direction, then the actual print position on the medium to be printed deviates from the anticipated print position, and this affects the quality of the image. In particular, in the case of performing borderless printing, if a blank area is formed at the upper edge of the medium to be printed due to the medium to be printed being skewed in the carrying direction, there is a possibility that the medium to be printed may be rendered useless. On the other hand, when performing borderless printing, increasing the margin of the print range in order to cover the entire medium to be printed reduces the possibility that a blank area will be formed at the upper edge of the medium to be printed, but it also carries the possibility that the amount of ink that is consumed will increase.
The present invention was arrived at in light of the foregoing issues, and it is an object thereof to achieve a printing apparatus, a printing method, a program, and a computer system with which the print start position of a medium to be printed can be determined very precisely and efficiently.